Take a look at the title. Notice anything strange? If you think it reads, “This Font Handles the Numeral “r” Funny,” please know that that isn’t actually the case.

It turns out the font I use for headings and the like on this site (called “Lancelot”) renders the number “1” to look like a lowercase letter “r.” It might seem like an accident, but it’s actually quite intentional. For instance, take a look at the following:

I’ll take 1 r for the making of your face.

That reads, “I’ll take 1 r for the making of your face.” The “1” and “r” are similar, but not the exact same. It’s kinda funny looking. Or this example that some of you gamers out there might get:

stop r1 spamming plz!!!1!!

If you’re wondering why it doesn’t do it for the body text, that’s because it’s a different font. Lancelot is used for headings and page titles, whereas Lara (if I recall correctly) is what I have set for the paragraph text.

It makes sense when you think of it as a number “1” with a little curly thing behind it, which is sort of Lancelot’s thing. Also, while the “1” looks a bit small in isolation, it’s actually comparable to other numbers:

123456789

It’s about the same height. Any oddity with respect to its size is pure illusion.

Now, I might go into a whole diatribe about how this is an affront to linguistic integrity in the way it obfuscates the meaning conveyed in printed communication, but honestly, I’m fine with it. Besides, there are far worse ways to obfuscate meaning, not the least of which is using arcane vocabulary to express an idea.

Another is the core of modern political discourse. In that setting, the issue of unclear communication goes beyond simply obscuring meaning by occluding the fact that what they’re saying never had any meaning to begin with.

Another example is modern social justice discourse. We see conventional terms applied so broadly that they actually end up meaning nearly nothing whatsoever. It’s not the same as political discourse – they’re not trying to obscure the fact that they’re saying nothing. Saying nothing is more incidental. The real danger here is that as one uses broad, meaningless terminology, one also thinks in broad, meaningless terms. I’m not sure which actually results from the other, but they tend to feed into one another in any case, so determining which came first – the broad term or the shallow thinking – is kind of moot.

This is kind of like how the “1” looks like an “r” in Lancelot. You can’t differentiate easily between the two, and so they appear to be the same thing. It becomes easy to call one the other, and if Lancelot is the only font you’ve ever seen, then it would be too easy to classify two very different characters as the exact same thing. There is little differentiation between two unique ideas, so there comes a tendency to lump them together.

The way around the problem? Look at it in a different font.

This short post is brought to you by the letter “r” and the number “1.” Be sure to like, comment, and share! All proceeds go toward futile attempts to pound some sense into dead horses. Really.